1. “Fact Sheet: Fair and Secure Immigration Reform,” Press Release by the Office of the Press Secretary, 7 01 2004.Google Scholar

2. Walzer, Michael, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 52–63.Google Scholar

3. Attas, Daniel, “The Case of Guest Workers: Exploitation, Citizenship and Economic Rights,” Res Publica 6/1 (2000): 73–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. For examples of the neoclassical theory of exploitation see Pigou, A. C., The Economics of Welfare (London: Macmillan, 1932), pp. 549–71Google Scholar; and Miller, David, “Exploitation in the Market,” in Modern Theories of Exploitation, ed. Reeve, Andrew (London: Sage Publications, 1987), pp. 149–65.Google Scholar

5. Attas, , “The Case of Guest Workers,” p. 78.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., p. 79.

7. Ibid., p. 84.

8. Ibid., p. 86.

9. Ibid., p. 88.

10. Ibid., p. 88.

11. Walzer, , Spheres of Justice, p. 59.Google Scholar

12. On Walzer's idea of dominance as a concept of exploitation see Mayer, Robert, “A Walzerian Theory of Exploitation,” Polity 34 (2002): 337–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. On the simple egalitarian impulse in Walzer's theory see Mayer, Robert, “Michael Walzer, Industrial Democracy and Complex Equality,” Political Theory 29 (2001): 237–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Walzer, , Spheres of Justice, p. 61.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., p. 61.

16. For an influential example of neomarxian exploitation theory see Roemer, John, Free to Lose: An Introduction to Marxist Economic Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

17. Walzer, , Spheres of justice, p. 60.Google Scholar

18. Heller, Matthew, “Companies Trying to Hire Foreign Professionals Face a Lower Cap on Visas,” Workforce Management 83/2 (2004): 64–65.Google Scholar

19. On the concept of exploitation see Goodin, Robert, “Exploiting a Situation and Exploiting a Person,” in Modern Theories of Exploitation, pp. 166–200Google Scholar; Wertheimer, Alan, Exploitation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; and Sample, Ruth, Exploitation: What It Is and Why It's Wrong (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).Google Scholar

20. On exploitative threats and offers see Gorr, Michael, Coercion, Freedom and Exploitation (New York: Peter Lang, 1989), pp. 147–65.Google Scholar

21. On the role of coercion in exploitative offers see Carling, Alan, “Exploitation, Extortion and Oppression,” Political Studies 35 (1987): 173–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. On mutually advantageous exploitation see Wertheimer, , Exploitation, pp. 13–24.Google Scholar

23. The exploitable insufficiency is not always financial. Affluent people who are emotionally needy can be exploited by someone with less income. These vulnerable individuals make enough money but still lack sufficient well-being and so can be taken advantage of.

24. The proper benchmark is a person (1) just above the threshold of sufficiency and (2) for whom sufficiency is guaranteed. The latter circumstance is crucial and assumed in all of my examples. Someone at the level of sufficiency can still be exploited if that sufficiency is insecure. The nonexploitative standard is thus an individual who is guaranteed sufficiency if she rejects an offer made by another agent.

25. A sufficiency wage is at least a living wage. On the theory and practice of the living wage see Pollin, Robert and Luce, Stephanie, The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy (New York: New Press, 1998).Google Scholar

26. On intuition as the test of adequacy in contemporary moral theory see Kymlicka, Will, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 5–8.Google Scholar

27. Within the liberal egalitarian camp, the sufficiency standard most closely matches Richard Arneson's prioritarian theory, which tilts in favor of those who are badly off. See Arneson, Richard, “Luck Egalitarianism and Prioritarianism,” Ethics 110 (2000): 339–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A related theory is Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach, which aims to raise as many people as possible above a threshold of well-being. See Nussbaum, Martha, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28. On the history of guestworker programs see Hahamovitch, Cindy, “Creating Perfect Immigrants: Guestworkers of the World in Historical Perspective,” Labor History 44 (2003): 69–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the origin, development, and termination of the German Gastarbeiter program see Herbert, Ulrich, A History of Foreign Labor in Germany, 1880–1980 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), pp. 209–54.Google Scholar

29. Paine, Suzanne, Exporting Workers: The Turkish Case (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 79–86.Google Scholar

30. Paine, , Exporting Workers, pp. 200, 87–88.Google Scholar

31. On union protection for guestworkers see Hollifield, James, Immigrants, Markets, and States: The Political Economy of Postwar Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 59–60Google Scholar; and Castles, Stephen and Kosack, Godula, Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 129.Google Scholar

32. Paine, , Exporting Workers p. 99.Google Scholar

33. Ibid., p. 100.

34. On the human costs of guestwork in Germany see Herbert, , History of Foreign labor, pp. 218–20, 225–28.Google Scholar

35. Paine, , Exporting Workers, p. 98.Google Scholar

36. Turkish guestworkers in Germany benefited from the relatively compressed wage scale, which paid blue-collar workers only a little less than the median income. A median income in Germany was a very high income in Turkey. In the United States, by contrast, income inequality is much greater and unskilled guests will therefore earn well below the median income. See Martin, Philip, Guestworker Programs: Lessons from Europe (Washington: U.S. Department of Labor, 1980), p. 39.Google Scholar

37. After the Gastarbeiter program was terminated in 1973, Germany did not expel its large guest population. Assimilation and naturalization of these immigrants proceeded slowly, but many analysts offer a positive assessment of this subsequent chapter in the German guestworker story. Even without German citizenship, the Turkish guests won many of the rights enjoyed by ethnic Germans. See Soysal, Yasemin, Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Jacobson, David, Rights across Borders: Immigration and the Decline of Citizenship (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1996)Google Scholar; and Joppke, Christian, “The Legal-Domestic Sources of Immigrant Rights: The United States, Germany, and the European Union,” Comparative Political Studies 34 (2001): 339–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. On the history of temporary worker recruitment programs in the United States see Briggs, Vernon, “Nonimmigrant Labor Policy: Future Trend or Aberration?” in The Unavoidable Issue: U.S. Immigration Policy in the 1980s, ed. Papademetrious, Demetrios and Miller, Mark (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1983), pp. 93–122.Google Scholar On the Bracero program see Galarza, Ernesto, Strangers in Our Fields (Washington: Fund for the Republic, 1956)Google Scholar; Galarza, Ernesto, Merchants of Labor: The Mexican Bracero Story (Charlotte: McNally & Loftin, 1964);Google Scholar and Calavita, Kitty, Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the I.N.S. (New York: Routledge, 1992).Google Scholar

39. Storey, Jaime, “The Braceros” in Uprooted: Braceros in the Hermanos Mayo Lens, ed. Storey, Jaime and Mraz, John (Houston: Arte Público Press, 1996), p. 43.Google Scholar

40. See the figures cited in Galarza, , Strangers in Our Fields, pp. 2–3, 30, 36;Google Scholar and Belshaw, Michael, A Village Economy: Land and People of Huecorio (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), pp. 124–33, 324–25.Google Scholar

41. For accounts of these abuses see Galarza, , Strangers in Our Fields and Merchants of Labor.Google Scholar

42. Belshaw, , A Village Economy, p. 126.Google Scholar Belshaw includes a series of first hand accounts in his chapter on the braceros, pp. 123–33.Google Scholar

43. See the chapter on the labor force in Belshaw, , A Village Economy, pp. 96–155.Google Scholar

44. Hancock, Richard, The Role of the Bracero in the Economic and Cultural Dynamics of Mexico: A Case Study of Chihuahua (Stanford: Hispanic American Society, 1959), pp. 105, 124.Google Scholar

45. On the plight of agricultural guestworkers see Wilkinson, Alec, Big Sugar: Seasons in the Cane Fields of Florida (New York: Knopf, 1989)Google Scholar; Hall, M. L., “Defending the Rights of H-2A Farmworkers,” North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation 27/3 (2002): 521–37Google Scholar; and Oliveira, Laura, “A License to Exploit: The Need to Reform the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Guest Worker Program,” The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Minority Issues 5 (2002): 153–78.Google Scholar

46. Guestworkers who do domestic labor also tend to experience harsh exploitation. On the plight of female domestic guestworkers see Parrenas, Rhacel, Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Chen, Christine, In Service and Servitude: Foreign Female Domestic Workers and the Malaysian “Modernity” Project (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Constable, Nicole, Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Filipina Workers (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; and Bell, Daniel, “Equal Rights for Foreign Resident Workers?” Dissent 48/4 (2001): 26–34.Google Scholar

47. One reason why the Gastarbeiter program was less exploitative was that West Germany had to compete with other European nations for guestworkers. On this point see Hahamovitch, , “Creating Perfect Immigrants,” p. 85.Google Scholar

48. Wertheimer, , Exploitation, pp. 278–309.Google Scholar

49. Ibid., p. 296.

50. Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977), pp. 251–68.Google Scholar

51. One might be justifiably pessimistic that the United States could avoid perpetrating these abuses again, in which case it ought not to establish a guestworker program. But Hahamovitch argues that the abuses were restricted during the first five years of the Bracero program: “Despite sporadic and sometimes serious mistreatment on American farms, this five-year period was one of the few times in the history of guestworker programs when foreign workers were treated somewhat like guests.” However, the abuses grew worse in later years. See Hahamovitch, , “Creating Perfect Immigrants,” p. 82.Google Scholar

52. As Vernon Briggs points out, an enforcement mechanism that relies on guestworker complaints to detect abuse will be ineffective because guestworkers often remain silent in order to avoid employer retaliation. See Briggs, , “Nonimmigrant Labor Policy,” p. 115.Google Scholar See also Holley, Michael, “Disadvantaged by Design: How the Law Inhibits Agricultural Guest Workers from Enforcing Their Rights,” Hofstra Labor Law Journal 18 (2001): 575–623.Google Scholar

53. On the benefit of increased immigration for the world's poor see Chang, Howard, “Liberalized Immigration as Free Trade: Economic Welfare and the Optimal Immigration Policy,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 145 (1997): 1147–1244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54. For a strong version of the cosmopolitan assumption in liberal egalitarian theory see Carens, Joseph, “Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders,” Review of Politics 49 (1987): 251–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a more moderate version, which I endorse, see Chang, Howard, “Liberal Ideals and Political Feasibility: Guestworker Programs as Second-Best Policies,” North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation 27 (2002): 465–81.Google Scholar

55. For excellent criticisms of the guestworker concept that emphasize the cost to domestic unskilled labor see Martin, Philip and Teitelbaum, Michael, “The Mirage of Mexican Guest Workers,” Foreign Affairs 80/6 (2001): 117–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, Becoming an American: Immigration and Immigrant Policy (Washington, D.C.: USCIR, 1997), pp. 109–110.Google Scholar

56. On the impact of guestworker programs on domestic unskilled labor see Chiswick, Barry, “The Impact of Immigration on the Level and Distribution of Economic Weil-Being,” in The Gateway: U.S. Immigration Issues and Policies, ed. Chiswick, Barry (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1982), p. 310Google Scholar; Simon, Julian, The Economic Consequences of Immigration (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), pp. 242, 266CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stalker, Peter, Workers without Frontiers: The Impact of Globalization on International Migration (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), p. 87Google Scholar; and Chang, Howard, “Economic Analysis of Immigration Law,” in Migration Theory: Talking across Disciplines, ed. Brettell, Caroline and Hollifield, James (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 210.Google Scholar

57. On the cost to taxpayers if unskilled immigrants are quickly naturalized see Chang, , “Liberal Ideals and Political Feasibility,” pp. 466–467Google Scholar; Chang, , “Economic Analysis of Immigration Law,” p. 215Google Scholar; Chiswick, , “The Impact of Immigration on the Level and Distribution of Economic Well-Being,” p. 310Google Scholar; and Kershnar, Stephen, “Immigrants and Welfare,” Public Affairs Quarterly 16/1 (2002): 39–61.Google Scholar

58. Hahamovitch, , “Creating Perfect Immigrants,” p. 78.Google Scholar

59. Ibid., p. 76. Indeed, those with a cosmopolitan sensibility should be especially receptive to guestworker programs when they cannot enact their preferred policy of increased immigration. This is because temporary guests often become permanent residents. Once admitted, it is difficult for democratic states to expel these workers. Guestworkers, then, are often backdoor immigrants and future citizens or their legal equivalent. As the advocates of exclusion have come to recognize, “there is nothing more permanent than temporary workers.” See Martin, and Teitelbaum, , “The Miraee of Mexican Guest Workers.” p 131.Google Scholar